WINTER 2009
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INNOVATIONS + NEW BEGINNINGS
WOW
Welcome to our new president and his cabinet! In his inaugural speech, President Obama urged us, as individuals and as a nation to work hard and meet the many challenges we now face. The Obama Administration is developing an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan intended to create new jobs and stimulate long-term economic growth, based on developing a clean energy economy, reforms in our health care system, and investments in education and our national infrastructure, including roadways, mass transit, and communications network. The administration also pledges to make decisions about government expenditures open to public review, with a new website called recovery.gov. So, let your elected public servants know what's important to you via the web: www.whitehouse.gov.
And on another note, we offer this inspiring musical sigh in honor of #44: Robert Glasper’s Jazz for Obama: “Enoch’s (Inaugural) Meditation” featured as National Public Radio’s Song of the Day on Jan. 20.
A::B's First project in Idaho
We're working with the Nez Perce Tribe (Nimi’ipuu) of Northern Idaho to complete a feasibility study for a Multi-Purpose Training Education and Business Incubator Facility. The facility is intended to serve Tribal members and other residents from Idaho, eastern Washington and eastern Oregon. The facility is envisioned as a one-stop shop which will offer residents educational assistance to pursue local economic development efforts, while supporting traditional Tribal culture.
Agnew::Beck is helping the Tribe and the larger community craft a sustainable business plan for the facility and its programs. Our work with the Nez Perce marks Agnew::Beck's first Idaho-based project. We're very excited to expand our services to Tribes in the Lower 48! Thanks to the Nez Perce Tribe for this opportunity to work together.
A Greener Approach to Alaska Development
Two concepts have played a big role in several of our recent planning projects:
- Green Infrastructure – an integrated network of green spaces, parks, trails and wilderness reserves that protects land for wildlife, recreation, and drainage uses. Green infrastructure systems can save taxpayers money by preserving and enhancing natural drainage channels. They can increase property values by protecting greenspace, and maintain or improve public health by offering more opportunities for trail use. This concept has played an important role in recent plans in Big Lake and Homer.
- Conservation Subdivisions – this design allows for more flexibility in the layout of a subdivision, so a developer can create more or smaller individual lots in exchange for reserving protected, common open space. These spaces often preserve environmentally sensitive areas. Agnew::Beck has been helping to plan and guide a conservation subdivision through the approval process in Kodiak.
In the Hillside District Plan, these concepts go hand-in-hand. The plan includes both conservation subdivision standards and a green infrastructure map as policy tools.
Plans that People Read
In Big Lake, a planning team of local residents and stakeholders (assisted by Matanuska-Susitna Borough planners and Agnew::Beck) has been hard at work updating the community’s Comprehensive Plan. In an effort to get more residents up-to-speed and involved, the group designed a poster-sized “guidemap” to explain the plan’s main ideas in a clear and engaging way. The result? An appealing, user-friendly poster helped folks grasp important Big Lake issues at a glance and get involved in the process.
Check it out on the project’s webpage.
The 20-minute Neighborhood
In Portland, Oregon, citizens and city planners are a-buzz with the idea of 20-minute neighborhoods, where residents can fulfill their day-to-day needs within a 20-minute walking distance. Imagine being able to get to work, schools, grocery stores, restaurants, or your local post office or library via an easy walk. It’s not only a matter of convenience; efforts to make residents less car-bound also make money for the city, according to two reports from CEOs for Cities: Portland’s Green Dividend and Chicago’s Green Dividend. When we spend less time and money commuting, we're able to spend more on things we value in our communities, they say.
Here in Anchorage, Mountain View residents and advocates have been imagining a neighborhood renaissance based on this concept for several years. A summary of past planning efforts and a “Springboard for Action,” compiled by Agnew::Beck for the Anchorage Community Land Trust, will soon be available on the Mountain View Neighborhood Plan website. 
Mountain View already boasts a compact grid of neighborhood streets and an evolving commercial and civic area between Mountain View Drive and the Glenn Highway. The neighborhood has seen increased city and private investment in recent years and is gearing up for more. Because only about 25 percent of the neighborhood’s residents own cars (that’s the same proportion of car ownership as the Upper West Side of Manhattan, NYC!), Mountain View has one of the highest rates of transit use in the city, and is an ideal location for a compact urban center. Yet, future re-development could go either way, enhancing its urban amenities or continuing Anchorage’s tradition of urban sprawl.
Alaska Bike Commuters Unite
In honor of non-motorized forms of transit, Anchorage will be hosting the 2009 Alaska Bike Summit April 23-24, says Tomas, our in-house member of Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage (BCA), who bikes the six miles to our office year-round. The BCA is collaborating to host the summit in conjunction with the 2009 Alaska Recreation and Park Association (ARPA) Conference at the downtown Hilton Hotel. The conference will bring together bike organizations from all over Alaska to discuss different aspects of bicycles, bicycle planning and bike routes.
Welcome Elias Burke! 
On September 3, 2008, the world changed – at least for Ellen and her husband Derek, when they welcomed their son Elias Burke Campfield Nelson into the world. “Eli” is now nearly five months old and has grown from a soft, snuggly, 7-pound bundle of boy into a hefty, toy-grabbing, sweet-potato-eating, laughing and squealing, roly-poly, blue-eyed little 14-pound baby. He keeps Ellen pretty busy, although she does manage to squeeze in work on A::B projects, like the Nez Perce Facility Business Plan. Eli is enjoying Idaho’s comparatively mild winters and looks forward to a visit to Alaska sometime this Spring. Congratulations Ellen and Derek and welcome Baby Nelson!
Not-so-guilty Winter Pleasures
Warm up at FREEZE: This is the last weekend to enjoy the FREEZE project -- a celebration of Alaska and life in the North. We enjoyed this showcase of energy, design, health, transportation and art, and the bold series of large-scale, outdoor installations along the Delaney Park Strip. Congratulations to the teams of artists, architects, sound performers and designers from Alaska and around the world who participated. These installations highlighted the exquisite northern elements of snow, ice and light. Catch presentations on Native art and Northern ecology this weekend.
Star Gaze: Look up! Chris shares his home-made celestial guide to the Winter Sky. Go outside on the next clear winter evening and look generally south/southeast. Use Chris' guide to marvel at the biggest collection of bright stars you can see in one part of the sky at any time of year!
Pig out on vitamin D-laden foods: Vitamin D is getting a lot of fanfare lately, lauded for building strong bones and fighting cardiovascular disease. Our skin magically synthesizes vitamin D when exposed to UV rays and sunlight but in the deep, dark Alaskan absence of that sunlight, it’s a good idea to eat it in the form of fish, eggs, cod liver oil and fortified milk, according to the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements. Put that in your salmon quiche! Or try Holly's Curry Tuna Salad recipe.
